Cold Mashburn Not An Option

Heat Needs Forward To Score

May 11, 1997|By CHRIS PERKINS and Staff Writer

MIAMI - — Two Heat players, both plagued by playoff demons,

remained after practice Saturday at LaSalle High School.

At one end of the court, center Alonzo Mourning worked on his free-throw shooting with assistant coach Tony Fiorentino. At the other end, forward Jamal Mashburn engaged in long-range shooting contests with assistant coach Bob McAdoo.

Strong arguments can be made about whose work was more important to the Heat's success, but those who side with guard Tim Hardaway will contend Mashburn's improvement has the biggest upside.

"You can't run the offense through one player or two players all the time," Hardaway said. "I think you have to run it through three players. That's with every great team. Chicago. The Celtics. L.A. Lakers. Even with the Knicks. They've got three guys they can go to."

Mashburn's 3-pointer with 2.9 seconds remaining against the Knicks in Game 2 was exactly what the Heat needs. The challenge is getting him to play that way for 48 minutes. Mashburn, who declined to speak with reporters Saturday, ended Game 2 with just six points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field.

At its best, Mashburn's offensive game is so versatile he can be a nightmare for a defense. And sometimes, when he's not hot on offense, his game enables him to do other things to help the Heat win.

For example, Mashburn has defended Knicks forward Larry Johnson pretty well, save for a few outbursts such as the first quarter of Game 1, when Johnson had eight points.

But what the Heat needs most is Mashburn's offense.

Against Orlando, Mashburn's first taste of postseason play, he averaged just 10.6 points per game. The only reason the average hit double digits was that he had 19 points in a Game 4 loss.

In six postseason starts, Mashburn has reached double figures just twice - Game 4 at Orlando and 14 points against the Knicks in Game 1.

The Heat's offense has operated with Hardaway as the first option, Mourning as the second and a committee of others - Mashburn, Voshon Lenard, Dan Majerle, Isaac Austin, P.J. Brown among them - third.

Coach Pat Riley generally scoffs at the notion the Heat needs a solid go-to third option, but Hardaway maintains it's a necessity.

"It's going to have to be Mashburn," Hardaway said. "He has to step up. He's 6-8. He's got great skills. He can shoot the ball, he can make layups, he can rebound off the offensive and defensive boards. He has all the tools and we want him to step up."

Riley, speaking about a third scoring option in general, said that person has to get 20 "catches," or times handling the ball, each game. Hardaway and Mourning get at least that many. No one else gets that many because they havent't scored consistently. "Until we get somebody we feel comfortable we can take the ball to them 20 or 30 times a game, you're not going to have it," Riley said. While Hardaway identifies Mashburn as the player to take the offense to the next level, he's also careful not to point a finger. "You can't put too much pressure on him right now because he's trying, he's trying, he trying, and sometimes you try too hard," Hardaway said. "People keep pumping him up, keep talking to him, he'll lose confidence in himself. So we just let him go and when he shoots the ball we just tell him to shoot it up, get it up, and we're going to have confidence in him regardless.

"He's on this team. Everybody is going to have confidence in everybody on this team."